CONTRIBUTIONS OF PROCESSING FLUENCY TO REPETITION EFFECTS IN MASKED WORD IDENTIFICATION

Prior exposure to a word is shown to improve its later identification in a brief, masked display when a free report task is used, but not in two-alternative forced choice or single-probe matching tasks that eli minate certain bias effects and provide an assessment of discriminabil ity. Modified forced choice and single-probe tasks were also used, in which subjects attempted to identify the target before presentation of the probe(s). This modification produced a discriminability advantage for old words, but only in the single-probe task. We argue that prior exposure does not enhance sensory processing of a target word; rather , it increases the fluency with which the target comes to mind when pr esented under difficult viewing conditions. In forced choice and singl e-probe tasks, fluency associated with processing the target may be ig nored in deference to discriminating among or evaluating the processin g of the probe(s).